Friday, October 12, 2012

Trust! Action planning should happen IN PERSON with people
who are trusted or vouched for.

Privacy! People should NEVER share other people's emails,
names, phone numbers, and personal info without their consent.

Separate! Use a SEPARATE organizer email list from an
announcement email list.

Outreach! Add people to the organizer list only AFTER you
have physically met them and if they have been vouched for.

Secure! Assume email is insecure. Action planning should
NEVER be discussed on
the internet.

Communicate! Use the organizer list to announce MEETINGS,
but never to discuss strategy or details of actions.

Announce! Public info (open actions, etc) should be
ANNOUNCED as widely as necessary at the strategically
appropriate time.

Bonus Suggestions

If at a planning meeting, someone isn't present to vouch for
someone, ask them to leave. Also trust your intuition.

If organizing actions, use an email that is unconnected to
the rest of your life.

Social networking may be fine to announce public info, but
is otherwise terrible security-wise, since you have no control
over how it is distributed. Social networking sites often
provide ways for the authorities to easily gather information.

Be aware of your email chains. Have an understanding about
what can be forwarded or copied.

Text message are more easily searchable for the authorities (legally and technically) than just about any medium. Be aware.

If you use email of SMS, don't talk in code. Authorities have
argued in court that coded words or deliberately obscured
references were allusions to even worse things.

Public members, such as spokespeople, should not participate
in actions (and possibly planning), because they will be
targeted. The less they know, the safer everyone is.

If open-organizing low-risk actions, some of the above
guidelines can be loosened, but be cautious.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

UBEW is a local radical tech collective. We host regular technology workshops, social events, and ongoing projects. Our goal is to make technology accessible to
people for whom it is often out-of-reach and educating people about responsible
and sustainable uses of technology that work toward a better world.

UBEW is a collectively-run, all-volunteer,
non-profit organization. We want to
encourage your interest in technology and provide a way for all of us to
exercise our radical politics. If you’d love to work with awesome folks who
feel comfortable expressing their geeky, playful, intellectually-curious side,
join us.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

This is our monthly, open meeting for tech-minded people who have an interest in software and hardware projects that benefit the community. We'll share ideas, help each other with projects, geek out in an egalitarian format, and consume mugs of frothy fermented grain beverage in the process (optional). A background or an interest in making stuff, computer programming, building hardware or electronics, and general geek culture might be helpful in understanding what the hell we are talking and laughing about.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

We want to see more women in the tech world. We know hella women with mad skills who don’t wanna deal with a scene in which male dominance is the status quo. Yeah, no wonder. We don’t either.

We want to encourage your interest in technology and provide a way for all of us to exercise our radical politics. We'd love to be working with more awesome women who feel comfortable expressing their geeky, playful, intellectually-curious side. We play around with servers and software and programming and robotics and building stuff. We teach people and create infrastructure for the radical community.

If you’ve ever soldered something and enjoyed it, or if you’ve ever learned a programming language and felt brilliant, or if you’ve ever designed something that worked perfectly, we'd like to share more of that with you in an environment where men, women, and trans folks can connect.

UBEW provides mutual support to anti-authoritarian groups making radical social change through direct action, community involvement, and education. We are a geek collective with roots in the anarchist tradition, so we are explicitly opposed to all forms of domination, including sexism, racism, and classism. We strive to learn from each other and focus our skills toward creative goals, to explore and research liberating uses of technology, and to work to create a new and better world.

We host regular Free Skool Hacktivism classes at SubRosa and a once-a-month Meet & Geek social the last Thursday of the month at 730pm at Bocci’s Cellar. We’d love to meet you and make cool stuff.